Counterfeiting poses a serious problem to the pharmaceutical industry. Counterfeit drugs can lead to lost revenues, increased liability, and brand erosion. Product recalls due to counterfeit warnings are expensive and disruptive.
Counterfeit drugs also pose a serious problem to the public. Counterfeit drugs might contain the wrong ingredient, lack an active ingredient, or be of poor quality. Deaths and hospitalizations have occurred due to counterfeit drugs that were contaminated with bacteria.
Counterfeiting is not limited to the pharmaceutical industry. Other industries—cosmetics, electronics, software, automotive and aircraft, to name a few—also have to deal with counterfeit products.
Overt measures to deter counterfeiting include marking products with distinct colors and patterns, holograms, recto/verso registration, and visible watermarks. Covert measures include marking products with invisible marks and machine readable code, fluorescent and magnetic inks, hidden patterns, encrypted codes, radio frequency identification, engravements, and micro-displacement of glyphs.
Most of these measures add complexity or cost (or both) to product manufacture. In addition, detection can be difficult and slow. Detection using some of these measures involves specialized equipment.
An inexpensive anti-counterfeiting measure is desirable. Quick and simple detection is also desirable.